Improvement in vehicle-wheel hubs



Vehicle-Wheel Hub.

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UNIT D STATES PATE OF I E oHARLEs K. wILooX, OF LIMA, OHIO..

IMPROVEMENT IN VEHlCLE-WHEEL HUBS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 199,244, dated January 15, 1878; application filed November 19, 1875.

To all whom 'it mag concern Be it known that I, CHARLES K. WILooX, of Lima, in the county of Allen and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in VVooden Carriage-Huhs, of which the following is a specification:

My invention relates to a wooden hub having its. waist or middle portion compressed and solidified, and provided with surrounding hands of metal; and the invention consists in constructing the huh, in the first instance, with finished ends, an enlarged helt or Zone at the middle, and annular grooves adjacent to said helt, and suhsequently compressing said helt to its finished size, and at the same time compressinginto the grooves metal hands, which engage over and hold the ends of the compressed belt, as hereinafter descrihed; and also in a peculiar form of the metal hand.

Figure 1 is a view, half in section and half in elevation, illustratingthe hub as constructed in the first instance, previous to the compression and the application of the hands. Fig. 2 is a similar view, showing the finished huh.

As shown in Fig. 1, the hub is first made with its ends finished complete in the usual form, and with an enlarged belt around the middle, and also with two circumferential grooves, A, around the ends contiguous to the enlarged belt.

After 'constructing the hub as above, I provide two hands, B, of wrought iron or other malleahle metal, such as shown detached in Fig. 1. The hands are madeof a sectional form, corresponding to that of the grooves A, and are each provided on the inner side with an overhanging lip, a, adapted to fit upon and encircle the enlarged belt of wood on the hub, and with an internal vertical shoulder or face at the inner edge of the overhanging lip.

After placing the hands upon the ends' of the huh, with their lips engaging over the ends of the enlarged helt, I then force the huh and hands into a tapering die of such size and form that it compresses the wooden helt and the hands, and reduces them to a diameter corresponding with the ends of the huh, therehy giving the huh the finished appearauce represented in Fig. 2, and seating the hands in the grooves, with their lips seated over and into the ends of the compressed central helt in such manner as to prevent it from eXpanding.

In this way I produce cheaply, and with a comparatively small expenditure of power, a huh which has the portion in which the spokes hear solidified and condensedto a great degree of hardness, and this, too, without the employment of the heavy machinery or heavy hands which would he required in case the entire hody of the huh were to he condcnsed.

I am aware that hands have been heretofore made with thin edges, and with a central thickened portion of a rounding form in crosssection; and I make no claim to either of said features, my improvement consisting in making .the hand with the overhanging lip on the inner edge, and comhining with said lip the fiat vertical shoulder at its inner or rear edge, in the peculiar manner shown in the drawing.

The advantage of my peculiar construction is, that the overhanging lip, engaging upon the outside of the central wooden hand, acting in conj unction with the square or vertical shoulder hearing directly against the end of the grain of the wood in said hand or zone, efl'ectually prevents the wood from hein g split and chipped off when the spokes are driven into the hub.

I am aware that it has heen proposed to condense wooden huhs hy means of dies, and that netallic hands have been shrunk, compressed, and otherwise secured upon grooved huhs, and also that it has been proposed to compress metal hands upon grooved huhs with such force as to condense the wood adjacent to the hands; and I make no claim thereto; hut

What I do claim is- 1. A wooden huh having the wood left in its natural condition at its ends, and having at the middle a highly-condensed Zone or belt provided with metal confining-hands, suhstantially as descrihed.

2. The herein descrihed method of constructing a wooden huh, consisting in first constructing the hub with finished ends and an enlarged central helt, and then applying metal hands to the ends of said belt, and suhsequently reducing the helt and the hands hy compression to a size corresponding with the the shoulder to abut squarely against the previously-finished ends.

3. A'metal hub-band having the overhangng lip at its inner side and the internal Vertical, or substantially vertical, shoulder at the inside of said lip, substantially as shown and described, the lip being adapted. to confine the spoke-receiving portion of the hub, and

- grain of said portion, to prevent its displace* ment.

OHARLES K. WILCOX.

Witnesses:

JOHN D. FOYE, GEo. W. MOYER. 

